Akayla Bay
by Kei Tree
Summary: Ch 13 Up! Set about 20 yrs after The Mummy Returns- involves Alex, Ardeth Bay's daughter, and Fate.
1. Chapter One: Introduction

Hey everyone... This is my first attempted post at FanFiction.net but   
I've been writing it and posting for over a year now, mostly SM(Sailor Moon)   
stuff... But I'd like to branch out some so here's a quick peek at a story   
I've started, among others. Please review, I love all kinds of feedback.   
Thanks guys!  
  
Kei  
  
Rating: PG  
Disclaimer: Despite fantasies in opposition to the obvious, I do not   
own the universe of The Mummy or The Mummy Returns. I am also rather broke,   
lets think carboard box with an internet connection, so suing me would get   
you nowhere. Now I do happen to know of some rather rich fanfic writers   
out there for your lawyers to investigate... *cough* Ahem, in other words,   
standard disclaimers apply.  
  
*Akayla Bay*  
Chapter One  
  
  
Akayla Bay shed few tears as the fire roared before her. She   
and her father had said their good byes long ago. One, perhaps two   
tears, leaked past her shields of self defense, no more though. In   
the desert water was precious, too precious to waste, even on a man as   
good as her father. Her tribe, HER tribe, ranged around her, and   
around the pyre that sent Ardeth Bay heavenward, for few doubted that   
heaven was his destination. Men who saved the world didn't go to   
hell. Not that Akayla would have ever known of her father's deeds.   
He would have never told her, but other men, just as great, greater,   
had made it their business to educate Akayla about her family's   
history. Not for pride, there was little pride among her desert   
people and that little bit belonged to them all, but of necessity.   
  
The monster had risen twice... He had lain, banished for the   
decades that had passed, but should he rise, should any other evil   
threaten the world, then it was Akayla's duty to stand in her father's   
shoes, to protect the world. Her line, Ardeth's line, was marked by   
Fate, for if not greatness, then great deeds. Many wished that she   
had been born a man... Ardeth had never been one of those.  
  
He had loved her since her first wailing breath, even if her   
birth had killed her delicate mother he had loved her. Had raised her   
as his shadow, his fierce untameable shadow. There was little   
gentility in a girl who had killed a man when she was eight, a tomb   
raider, but a man still. She had ridden before she could walk, run   
before she had crawled, and fought before she learned to cry.   
  
She was fierce, fierce as the desert wind, fiercer than the   
sun baked sands. Akayla had been raised off of the Nile's waters and   
cracked, parched earth. She had thrown her first knife at four, and   
drawn her first sword at six. Her bow was her constant companion and   
her arm held scars from letting her falcon Thor, a gift from her   
father, land without a leather brace. Her cheeks were tattooed and   
her hair was a wild mass of curling black that reached mid back. Her   
eyes were a gentle brown that hardened and darkened with her rolling   
emotions.  
  
She was not meek, humble, or subdued. There was little of her   
people's women in her, there was much of her father. He had not   
molded her into an intentional weapon. She had always been the first   
to reach for all that she knew, all that made her different, all that   
set her apart. Ardeth had never had the heart to deny her. That was   
his only fault, his love for her. He knew it, and she had as well.   
  
She had cherished that love, even as it destroyed her future   
and ruined his hopes for her. As she grew tall and strong, a warrior   
and not a woman, he had mourned the fact that his inability to deny   
her had denied Akayla the chance of a family, or a happy life. She   
had cherished it because it had made her father human, mortal, and now   
he was dead.  
  
She cursed herself for her foolishness as the pyre roared in   
the cold night air of Egypt. Akayla Bay bowed her head and wished her   
father well. No one comforted her as she turned and walked away, into   
the desert, leaving the raging fires to gutter and die unattended even   
as they consumed her father. No one dared. 


	2. Chapter Two: Angelic Demon

Author's Notes: *blinks* I like this review system... I'm already   
addicted to email but this is just as fun... LOL... Umm, here's   
chapter two... Keep writing those comments, good, bad, whatever... if   
bad please let me know what you think could be improved upon! Thanks!   
  
~Kei  
  
Rating: PG  
  
Disclaimer: All standard disclaimers apply! =)  
  
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~Akayla Bay : Chapter Two~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~  
  
  
Alex rode his horse hard. He wanted to reach the remains of   
Hamunaptra before night fell. It was cold in the desert at night and   
he preferred to spend it among friends, or at least among allies. He   
was never sure what the Medjai were, even if his father called them   
friends. Or more specifically, they were only his parent's friends...   
God knows if the courtesy extended to him. The only man he truly   
understood from them was Ardeth Bay. Fingers unconsciously reached   
inside his weathered leather vest to feel the crumpled letter in the   
breast pocket of his stained, once white shirt.  
  
Ardeth he understood, Ardeth he called friend. He hadn't seen him for   
over twenty years, since that one-week when Alex, a mere boy, had   
served as the catalyst for the end of the world, an end that was   
avoided through the heroic efforts of his parents and Ardeth Bay. He   
and the Medjai had kept up a correspondence through the decades, two   
men from opposite spectrums of society- he a Londoner, Ardeth a man of   
the desert. They had written of many things, of history and legend,   
of love and grief, of adventure and of death. Ardeth was more than   
courageous, more than one of the mythical heroes who lived and   
breathed today... More than a man with a sword... He was brilliant,   
witty, and had a sense of humor that made Alex laugh. While his   
father and mother had been off, lost in the depths of unknown,   
unnamed forests and mountains for half of his life Alex, when not with   
them, had studied, worked, and written Ardeth. He was like a second   
father to him, like an Uncle who managed to impart wisdom and guidance   
despite the miles that separated them.  
  
So when the letter had come, that brief and puzzling letter,   
Alex had done what it asked of him. He came, to Egypt, to the ruins   
of Hamunaptra, to the Medjai. Hesitant fingers pulled the creased   
letter out. He unfolded it, carefully, and read it for the thousandth   
time in the last hour of sunlight before darkness claimed the world.   
The air was already becoming biting cold.  
  
'Dear Alex... Fate and Destiny calls to me, and to you. Come,   
quickly, you are needed... ~Ardeth'  
  
It was important, whatever Ardeth knew, of that Alex had no   
doubt. If it had been something trivial, something of little   
consequence then there would have been more, details, warnings,   
something besides the two short imploring sentences.  
  
He had come alone, though the letter had not asked that of   
him. His mother and father, Evie and Rick O'Connell, were off   
exploring the darkest crevices of that giant continent of Asia, along   
with his younger sister, Callie. Alex snorted to himself. Callie was   
impossible, and not just because she was his younger sister. He at   
least had some of his mother in him, along with his father, Callie was   
a hellion. There was no other way to describe her, except barbaric.   
  
She had an English accent but every other inch of her screamed   
deplorable American. He smiled at the thought. She was twelve and   
just now starting to bloom into a beautiful young woman. She had   
Evie's looks, long dark hair and expressive eyes, but look any deeper   
and all you found was Rick O'Connell. She insisted on carrying loaded   
pistols around her waist and charged, head first, into everything.   
History was a slightly interesting footnote to the search for the   
unknown and dangerous. She was wild, impulsive, and had every single   
one of them wrapped around her little pinkie, especially Jonathan   
Carnahan, their real Uncle.   
  
Jonathan knew of his nephew's destination and wanted nothing to do   
with it. He was perfectly happy being a favorite dandy in the Queen's   
court, surrounded by riches and money, much of it his own. Not even   
he had managed to waste and gamble and drink away the gold he received   
from the diamond he and Izzie had split in the decades following Ahm   
Shere. Alex had gotten a good luck pat and a parting bag of gold.   
Jonathan was a good man; he was simply fond of his own skin.   
  
Alex pocketed the letter with a sigh and kicked his tired mount into   
one last gallop. He reached Hamunaptra as true night set in, or what   
was left of it. After his parent's escapades almost three decades ago   
no ruins remained, only sand, miles of it, and the black skull his   
delightfully morbid mother had drawn on the family's Egyptian map.   
She had drawn a crude scaled down pygmy at Ahm Shere though, so Alex   
could hardly complain about the skull.   
  
He unpacked and set up camp at the edge of what had once been the   
richest city in the world. It was unsettling, to say the least, and   
even his horse was skittish. His fire was slow to start and the   
howling wind bit even deeper than normal. He shivered as the deep   
penetrating cold set in, before giving up on the reluctant fire and   
finding what little warmth he managed in his bedroll, with his horse   
hobbled nearby. It was not a restful night, there, where the ghosts   
of monsters and innocents could so easily whisper in his ear. Alex's   
stark solace was the beauty of the Egyptian sky- an inky quilt that   
blanketed heaven with its fields of diamond strewn stars.   
  
Well, the stars and the fact that the Medjai wasted little time in   
finding him. He was awakened, not by the sun that was just now   
starting to peak over the horizon in a gaudy display of splendor, but   
by a sword's cold steel, pressed lightly but surely against his   
throat. He opened startled eyes and blinked when he saw that he was   
surrounded by men with familiar dark robes and tattooed cheeks. And   
that it was a woman holding the sword to his throat. She smiled and   
Alex swore that, had it been possible for a demon and an angel to   
possess the same form, that they both possessed her.  
  
"Well outsider," she taunted in a light voice, only barely flavored by   
her native tongue as cold dark eyes stared him down, "any last words?" 


	3. Chapter Three: At Sword Point

Author's Notes/Disclaimer: Hay yall, let me know whatcha think! =)   
Thanks ~Kei  
  
Standard disclaimers apply, always... Bye!  
  
  
  
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~Akayla Bay: Chapter Three~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~  
  
  
Akayla stared impassively at the outsider she held at sword tip. Few   
ventured so far into the uncharted desert save foolish soldiers and   
greedy tomb robbers... This man did not look like a soldier.  
  
"Well outsider," she asked, taunted of this pale, sun burned man, "any   
last words?" He smiled and the sight intrigued her. There was no   
fear in his face, of either her or his imminent death. He replied   
easily, even though his adam's apple bobbed and let a thin line of red   
color his throat.  
  
"Two actually... Ardeth Bay."   
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~  
  
The woman's hand trembled slightly at his words and her face,   
beautiful even in its sharpness, flashed once with a pain he had   
rarely seen unmasked. Those who rarely experience grief have trouble   
hiding it.   
  
For one instant Alex was transported back, over twenty years ago, to   
the moment he had lost his mother. He had never seen his father   
grieve, before or since, but in that moment all shields, all guards,   
had been rent, torn, broken by a loss so great it had been, and was   
even now, in the twilight of their lives, unimaginable. The moment   
passed and the coldness there rivaled the desert night.  
  
"How did you learn that name? That name is too good for you...   
How did you learn his name?!" The sword wavered and pressed tighter   
against his throat. Alex held his breath as an elderly Medjai stepped   
forward.  
  
"Akayla..."  
  
"Go away Geitran. You are a visitor here, nothing more, I am leader   
of these men." The man ignored her harsh words and walked through the   
ranks of gathered warriors to kneel at Alex's side; dark robes pooling   
around him like ink. Alex's cool gaze met the Medjai's own dark,   
secretive eyes. They searched him, probed him, remembered him.  
  
"You cannot kill this man Kayla, for you, all of us, owe him a great   
debt." The woman's face darkened and her eyes flashed at the   
challenge she perceived in the elder's opposition.  
  
"And why would I owe a grave robber anything Geitran? Enlighten me!"   
The old man rose, dusted sand from his robes, and raised white   
eyebrows in response to the imperiousness of youth. He dared to put   
one weathered, restraining hand on the slender one that unerringly   
held the sword that sought Alex's life.  
  
"Because his name is Alex O'Connell. Because he was there when Ahm   
Shere vanished beneath the unforgiving sands. Because he read from   
the Book of the Dead and brought his mother back to life. Because he   
wore the Bracelet of Anubis. Because the monster was defeated once   
and for all through events that centered entirely upon him. Because   
he is not a grave robber." The sword was taken from stiff unresisting   
fingers, and handed to a silent warrior before Geitran leaned down and   
gripped Alex's hand tightly, bringing the younger man to his feet.   
  
Alex was faintly surprised to find himself a good head taller than the   
woman who had laid claim on his death. She glared at him, arms folded  
defiantly across her breast, even as he bowed, face straight despite   
the inane urge to smile, with respect.  
  
"All that Geitran says is true. I was but a child but they are still   
true. I... I was asked to come by Ardeth..." Again that flash of   
sadness was there and gone in the eyes of the strange woman nomad. He  
reached into his vest and retrieved the crumpled letter. Alex held   
it out to the woman who did not deign to take it.   
  
Geitran's gnarled fingers gently claimed it. The old Medjai read it   
in silence. He turned to the woman, face a carefully neutral mask.  
  
"Mr. O'Connell speaks the truth Akayla. Ardeth asked him to come..."   
The fully roused Akayla whirled, both to Geitran and to him,   
oblivious to the utter embarrassed silence of the men surrounding   
them.   
  
"Then he made a trip for nothing didn't he Geitran? Because Ardeth is   
three weeks dead and gone. I should know, I flung his ashes to the   
wind myself!" Geitran moved to reply even as Alex's world reeled.  
  
Ardeth, Ardeth his confidant, his friend, his second father was dead?  
  
"How?" Alex croaked in a daze, interrupting Geitran's reprimands. The   
full fury of the fierce and pain filled Akayla turned on him. Had he   
been any other he would have withered beneath her gaze but he had   
faced the iron mask of Imhotep without flinching... mere mortals held   
little fear for him.  
  
"A scorpion sting. It slipped into his tent one night, while he   
slept. He never woke again. Why would you care?" Stung Alex roused   
himself, found shelter from grief in too easily accessible anger.  
  
"Because when my world was troubled, when it was frightening I knew I   
could always turn to Ardeth and find a friend... Find a sort of uncle,   
a second father if you will. He raised me as much as my own family   
did. That's why I care... Why the hell do you?" The girl's face   
shut down, became an unreadable shuttered thing... granite, marble, an   
immovable statue. She looked at him, truly looked at him, and Alex   
shivered because for one moment her eyes had rivaled the beast that   
had been two decades in the earth. Two decades not long enough.  
  
"He..." she paused and for the slightest moment the marble cracked and   
faltered before Akayla finished, voice fading softer as she spoke the   
words, "because he was my father." She turned away from him and it   
was like a slap. The woman walked away without another word,   
shoulders set in a thin, proud line, dark curls flowing behind her   
like a shroud of mourning. Her people, silent, still, parted before   
her like the sea.   
  
Alex looked, helplessly at Geitran. The older Medjai sighed. "Her   
name is..."  
  
"Akayla Bay," Geitran finished. "She was born nine months after Amh   
Shere. Ardeth loved her with all his soul." Alex stared, unseeing,   
into the distance.  
  
"And now Ardeth is dead." Geitran bowed his head.   
  
"Yes."  
  
"She is leader of Ardeth's tribe?"  
  
"Yes."  
  
"I won't leave, not until I know why Ardeth summoned me. I was not   
called lightly." Geitran flinched.  
  
"And you have not been dismissed lightly. Akayla has much of her   
father in her along with several other less desirable traits. She   
lives with her heart young O'Connell, her heart and her sword. If you   
cross her you shall regret it." Alex looked at the older Medjai and   
shrugged.  
  
"Then I shall stay out of her way but I will stay, until I understand   
what's happening." Geitran nodded once, briskly, and sighed again,   
louder.  
  
"Very well. I may be a visitor at this camp but I am not a   
stranger. I can at least offer you hospitality. Come..." The Medjai   
elder turned and walked towards the cliffs that surrounded what was   
once Hamunaptra. The Medjai trailed behind them like ghosts as Alex,   
after grabbing his bedroll and the lead rope of his exhausted horse,   
followed. 


	4. Chapter Four: Dangerous Ground

AN: Ickles, its been way too long between updates, a thousand   
apologies by the way! I got sidetracked by RL, creating some web   
sites, Harry Potter, and about five new fics... LOL... Many thanks to   
those who have reviewed, especially Marcher who has reviewed *every*   
chapter so far! =) Thankies! The plot should start appearing soon   
and, bear with me as I fumble through my egyptian mythology... Greek,   
Roman, hell even Norse, I can handle but egyptian is not my area of   
expertise...LOL Any comprehensive web site suggestions would be very   
welcome for research... Till next time, hopefully much sooner...  
  
~Kei  
  
PS: standard disclaimers apply, as always...  
  
  
  
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~Akayla Bay: Chapter Four~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~  
  
  
Geitran stepped gingerly, softly, barely a shadow that slipped through   
the darkness of the desert's absolute night. Akayla was perched on a   
slab of sandstone that stretched precariously out over the remains of   
Hamunaptra and was a part of the cliffs that Ardeth, that Akayla's   
tribe called home. She turned to look at him and her severe face was   
softened by the slight light offered by the full silver moon. Her   
tattoos stood out sharply though, marks of duty on a face paled and   
smoothed by moonlight. Dark eyes studied him briefly before she   
turned back to the valley that had been her home for almost twenty   
years.   
  
"Is the Englishman gone?" she asked crisply in their native tongue.   
Geitran winced. Night might have softened her features but her   
personality, her tongue, was always sharp. She turned swiftly as   
silence greeted her question, face dangerous.   
  
"I AM leader of this tribe Geitran. If you wish to interfere go home   
and do it. May I remind you that you are my father's friend, not   
mine."   
  
"Was you father's friend," he said, gently as possible, but the proud   
Akayla flinched anyway.   
  
"Kayla, please, listen to wisdom... Ardeth did everything for a   
reason. If he called Alex O'Connell here it was for a purpose. You   
cannot, must not, send him home yet, not until you know why your   
father wished him to come." Akayla's generous mouth firmed into a   
bitter hard line.  
  
"Perhaps he simply wished for the Englishman's company. You saw his  
face Geitran, when he learned of Father's fate, of his death. I   
imagine mine looked much the same... He loved Ardeth, like a father.   
Perhaps that was the reason that Father called him, because he wished   
to see the son of his soul, since all he had to hold was a daughter."   
Geitran's eyes widened. So that was it... He knew Akayla Bay but   
remotely. None had known her closely save her father, none had been   
able to pierce the walls she had built around herself. He had seen   
her anger, her spirit, her stubbornness, over the long years, but he   
had never seen her as she was now, vulnerable. He barely knew how to   
recognize it in her but it was indeed there, a softness Geitran had   
guessed long ago erased by harsh desert winds and a fierce sun.   
  
He walked to her side and sat. Her eyes flickered, unreadable, and   
Geitran wisely ignored the faint suggestion of tears. He reached up   
and patted one cheek. She was cold to the touch.   
  
"Is that what's bothering you Akayla? That your father might have   
cared for another as much as you simply because he was a boy?" She   
didn't answer but her own silence was answer enough. "Come child," he   
chided, "did you think so poorly of your father?" She stiffened with   
anger and he continued, ignoring her reaction. "Ardeth Bay loved you   
from the first wailing breath you took. He loved you as he buried his   
wife, your mother. He loved you as you cried, as you raged, as you   
turned your back on tradition and embraced the life that would make   
you happiest. He loved you even as he helped you wash the blood of   
dead men from your hands. He loved you as he defended you from the   
rest of the Medjai leaders." Akayla jerked away and Geitran smiled   
grimly.  
  
"Oh yes child. You never knew? I expect that he kept it from you.   
The Medjai have survived by tradition and you, you young hellion   
promised to be the undoing of all we've built and believed in, even as   
you dedicated your whole existence to our continued survival. He won   
in the end; we did not interfere in your upbringing. We did not   
contest his will, that you be leader in the event of his tragic or   
eventual death.  
  
"He loved you young Kayla. Perhaps that was the one thing he never   
needed a reason to do. He loved you for all you were and all that   
you'd ever be. Don't you know that?" Akayla closed her pained eyes   
tightly, lashes dark against white cheeks.  
  
"Yes," she hissed. "But what about the Englishman?" Geitran rose   
before he answered.   
  
"Your father had a very big heart Kayla. Rick and Evelyn O'Connell   
were dear friends of his and Alex was in all things their son, the   
best of them both. There is no reason why he shouldn't have been   
friends with the young man. Both of them stood and watched Ahm   
Shere disappear beneath the sands. There are things that can bind   
people together for lifetimes, I'd say that saving the world qualifies   
as one of those things.  
  
"Hate young Alex if you wish, not even Ardeth managed to tell you what   
to do or not to do. I would not presume to be so brave. Hate him if   
you wish but do not send him away, not yet." Geitran offered her his   
hand. Akayla stared at it warily before rising by herself, ignoring   
the pace offering. She did smile slightly though and Geitran accepted   
the terms of that smile.  
  
"Come, sleep, in the morning we shall see if we can find the reason to   
all this madness. Perhaps Ardeth left behind notes, or a letter..."  
  
"My father wouldn't be that stupid... And what if I don't want to   
sleep?" Geitran sighed, patience at his end.   
  
"Then lay awake all night staring at the ceiling to your tent... Or   
better yet go keep young Alex company. I doubt he sleeps much this   
night either." Akayla laughed and it was a brittle, harsh sound.   
  
"If I had my knives with me..." she started, threat clear in her   
lovely, velvety voice.  
  
"You do have your knives," Geitran stated plesantly enough.   
  
"Why yes, I do," she replied swiftly as they made their way back to   
camp. "And thus my threat has truth in it." Geitran chuckled   
hollowly and bowed slightly.  
  
"You child, are more like Ardeth than you know." A knife was out, in   
a blink of the eye, and was twirled carelessly from hand to hand.  
  
"Father rarely threatened his friends," Akayla said,   
conversationally. Geitran grinned, finding himself liking this gruff   
young woman.  
  
"No, but besides you establishing the fact that we are not friends,   
you and your father both have a flair for the dramatic." The knife   
disappeared into the folds of Akayla's black robes.   
  
"You've tread on dangerous ground Geitran..." Geitran coughed   
politely.  
  
"All ground with you is dangerous Akayla Bay." Kayla flashed him a   
perfect, white smile that left the elder Medjai stunned.   
  
"Well spoken. I can see why Father liked you Geitran." He spoke   
before he could stop himself. Spoke because he missed Ardeth, not as   
painfully, not as bitterly as the two young people who called him   
father, but just as deeply.   
  
"And you, young Akayla Bay? What of you?" The smile faltered and   
died as Kayla regarded him, warily, thoughtfully.  
  
"Perhaps," she replied finally, softly. "We shall see... We shall   
see." 


	5. Chapter Five: Unexpected Truce

AN: Yes, VERY long time between updates... heh heh. I had a bit of a block and kinda went and   
wrote a twenty seven chapter Labyrinth story instead but, I'm back. Review me, nag me, motivate   
me. The first one is a requirement, the second two are optional. =)  
  
Disclaimer: Standard disclaimers apply because, well, the world would end otherwise... *insert   
spooky music* Whoooo....   
  
  
  
  
**************************** Akayla Bay: Chapter Five ******************************  
  
  
"Sleep well?" Alex looked up at the cheerful voice that hailed him and found Geitran beaming.   
Alex ran one tired hand through tangled hair and glowered as he let the flap of his borrowed   
tent close behind him.   
  
"No," he replied shortly and left it at that as he stood and stretched in the weak dawn's   
light. Geitran's smile slipped and he stepped forward, putting one hand on Alex's shoulder.   
  
"Grief... grief does get easier with time. The wound heals and, there will always be scars,   
but the pain lessens." The young Englishman sighed softly and nodded, secure in wisdom greater   
than his twenty eight years.  
  
"I know. I know." His gaze grew distant as he stared at a point slightly over the Medjai's   
shoulder. "What? Where do we go now? Its been two nights..." It was Geitran's turn to sigh.   
  
"Yes, it has. I, hopefully we will go through Ardeth's things today, look for clues as to why   
he asked for your presence. Even perhaps why he died so suddenly."   
  
Alex's eyes snapped to the nomad's lined face. "He died from a scorpion sting. Akayla, his own   
daughter, said so. I've heard others say so."   
  
Geitran snorted. "Ardeth Bay stood at the maw of utter chaos, of certain death, and lived.   
Lived through the death of a wife and leadership of a tribe in our harsh desert home. He was   
healthy and strong. Coincidence only stretches so far before that thin line is the taunt net of   
Fate.   
  
"The man you called friend died from a scorpion sting, yes, but why? There are forces in this   
world we cannot name, let alone understand. And many of them know you, your parents, and   
Ardeth Bay. Many resent the fact that our world is not consumed by fire and Imhotep's iron   
rule. Many called him lord and master, things not wholly part of this world yet, not barred   
totally from it. Wraiths, shadows, petty evils that could provide mortality's kiss sooner   
than need have been."  
  
Alex's somber eyes searched the Medjai's sad, heavy gaze. Searched and saw the truth and   
belief behind the cryptic words. He expelled a heavy breath. "You think something magical,   
powerful even, killed Ardeth. You think he suspected what would happen, that death would steal   
him. That's why he sent for me."   
  
"Yes."   
  
Alex turned his heel and strode back towards the Medjai camp. Back towards the tent that stood   
apart from the others, quiet, still, even in the fierce desert wind. A tent that had stood   
untouched, on Akayla's grief stricken orders, for three weeks. A tent that hadn't seen life   
since Ardeth had breathed his last.   
  
Geitran, with a curse, followed as dawn turned the desert around them a thousand glorious   
shades of pink and gold.  
  
***************************************************************************************  
  
Akayla Bay looked up, face a storm, hand poised above an unopened leather bound book on top of   
a rickety desk in her father's tent. The flap was flung open in one decisive movement before   
the man behind that movement stopped suddenly, surprised by the sight of her.   
  
Alex O'Connell was framed for one moment against the rising sun, a tall, dark silhoutte softened   
by the rays that filtered around him like a halo. Her throat constricted and the young woman   
looked away for a moment, to compose herself, to banish the sudden memory of her father. To   
banish the thought of him loving this man, this outsider, this intruder enough to bring him   
here. To ask him to come to his home, her home, their home.   
  
To bring this man into their lives, once shared, now broken by Ardeth's death. Akayla Bay had   
never loved anyone else but her father. And he was ash, dust, memories.   
  
Kayla reached up and wiped sudden tears away angrily. Angry at the weakness in herself, angry   
at her father, and angriest at all at the Englishman who would not go away. At the foreigner   
who defied her. At the man who mourned as deeply as she did.   
  
"Why are you here?" Her slightly accented voice was icy velvet. Lower than a normal woman's   
but hardly masculine. It was a voice that many women had taken years to perfect. A voice for   
back parlors and private rooms. It was a voice that could purr and growl all at once. A voice   
that could crawl under a man's skin and run fingers up his spine.  
  
A voice that was wasted on this young woman. Akayla Bay had killed her first man when she was   
eight. She was not a creature of perfumes or make ups. She was something wild, untamed, free   
as the western wind and just as ominous. She was beautiful despite herself and hated it.   
  
Alex O'Connell hesitated another moment before ducking and entering the tent. Akayla's amber   
gaze narrowed and darkened in mute response. The man met her eyes unflinchingly, openly. She  
might have called him foolish but there was something, some glint of intelligence, of subtle   
wit, that warned her not to underestimate the man before her, no matter how much she wished to   
ignore and discredit him.   
  
"I will not leave until I discover why Ardeth summoned me. If there are clues anywhere then   
they are here."   
  
Akayla raised her chin defiantly, hauntingly, every inch a Medjai leader. "And what gives you   
the right to enter his quarters? Who gave you permission?" Alex laughed and it was a brittle   
harsh thing. Kayla bristled in mute response. He took a step closer, clean features shifting   
into steel.   
  
She took a step backwards in surprise before she realized that her movements signaled retreat.   
Akayla Bay stood her ground and went slowly towards her knives as Alex O'Connell advanced and   
stopped an uncomfortably close six inches from her.   
  
He stared down at her livid face, the steel and resolve in his own never wavering and only   
barely masking his sudden anger. Kayla swallowed but otherwise didn't move. She never backed   
down, never, couldn't.   
  
"I need no one permission Akayla Bay. I am a free man, not bound or ruled by anyone. Anyone,   
especially some spoiled child who lashes out in petty anger because of her inability to deal   
with grief."   
  
Akayla hissed.  
  
"And what are you doing Alex O'Connell? I see the anger in you; I see the rage."   
  
And for a moment her small fingers slid and grasped the hilt of one of her knives, afraid she   
had pushed the Englishman too hard as fury blossomed and died in his pale, strange eyes. Akayla   
watched silently as the tense line of his shoulders broke and he relaxed. He took a small step   
back, granting Kayla the personal space she demanded by attitude and presence alone.   
  
She was most taken back when he bowed shallowly to her though, respect not deference clear in   
the gesture.   
  
"Forgive me Akayla Bay. I was also acting out of my emotions."   
  
She pretended to ignore the tears that glimmered in his eyes. A man should never cry,   
especially not in front of a woman, but here, as they stood, two strangers who had both loved   
one dead man as a father, Akayla wouldn't, couldn't see his tears as evidence of a weakness.   
  
Any other she would have scoffed at. But this outsider, this Alex O'Connell mourned for Ardeth   
Bay and that, that imperious, impervious, Kayla understood all too well.   
  
Instead of replying to the unexpected apology she reached instead for the book. "Come, let us   
see if we can find the answers to our questions."   
  
********************************************************************************************  
  
Geitran entered a moment later and raised wintry brows at the obvious, unexpected truce. 


	6. Chapter Six: Voice From the Past

AN: Big thanks to everyone who took the time to review... MArcher, Kat Morning (THANK YOU for   
the comprehensive Egyptian Mythology site!), Catt, LglyNtBlnd, *your name here*.... I thrive   
off of reviews and do accept constructive criticism fairly well. Okay, I don't burn down   
buildings and that's a plus, right? LOL Neway, please review, or at least enjoy the newest   
chapter.  
  
And if these author notes weren't real coherent blame it on the raging fever I have. And no,   
I'm not one of those happy sick people, or pretty ones either. ;)  
  
Standard disclaimers apply because I'm too sick to think of anything else. =)   
  
  
  
**************************** Akayla Bay: Chapter Six *******************************  
  
  
Kayla's brows gathered like storm clouds at the bridge of her aristocratic nose, eyes darkening   
with frustration and some small amount of further anger as she attempted to read what she   
assumed to be her dead father's diary, or journal.   
  
"Its in English," she spat finally as tanned, roughened fingers delicately turned yet another   
page. Her gaze grew dangerous as she indignantly glared up at the Englishman who stood, almost   
hovering, behind and over her, like some pale, blonde haired shadow. The metaphor annoyed her,   
more than it probably should.  
  
"Let me read it..." Alex O'Connell made as if to reach for the leather bound book. Akayla   
snarled and stepped out of his grasp, book clutched stubbornly to her breast as she continued   
to glare, dividing her attention equally between the intrusive Englishman and Geitran who had   
managed to slip into the tent almost unnoticed.  
  
Not unnoticed.  
  
Akayla's senses didn't allow that kind of danger. She knew what was happening around her at   
all times. Always had. Necessity made her a light sleeper.  
  
"Akayla," the elder Medjai chided as he stepped forward to stand next to an exasperated Alex in   
an unconscious show of male solidarity. Kayla snorted.  
  
"This book may contain some of my father's most personal thoughts, feelings, memories, I will   
not have them desecrated by him!" The him she referred to was obvious. Alex's patience   
snapped.  
  
"Yes, it might. Have you even considered why it was written in English Akayla Bay? Perhaps so   
that you could not read them. Ardeth and I have written of many things over the years. I knew   
him just as well, just as intimately, as you. Why am I so unworthy? Perhaps the reason I was   
called was because I was meant to be the one to read his last words..."   
  
Akayla's full mouth shut and firmed into a thin line of suppressed rage. She started to snap a   
response and stopped as the weakness of her argument resounded stupidly in her own head...   
  
'Because you aren't one of us. Because you haven't lived at the edge of civilization all your   
life. Because you have always had enough to eat. Because you still burn under the desert's   
fierce sun. Because your cheeks are unmarked, unstained, by the tattoos that bind me to duty   
and honor and loyalty. Because you are different!'  
  
Alex O'Connell was unworthy in Akayla's eyes because he wasn't her. It was a damned awful   
reason but then, Kayla had never done well at explaining herself, her thoughts, her motives.   
Few demanded that of her. She simply was. She simply existed.   
  
She dealt with consequences, not questions. Not with Englishmen who would not leave her alone!  
  
Ardeth's death made her ache, made some part within her she thought long dead hurt, and that in   
turn made her feel vulnerable. Akayla Bay was used to crushing vulnerability, not living it.   
It made her guarded, more so than normal. Made her want to lash out and this pale, assured man   
from lands far, far away, this Outsider, was a too convenient target. Especially when his words   
held truths that proud, proud Akayla had no desire to hear.   
  
She knew she was acting childishly, dishonorable, and, frankly, hardly cared.   
  
The book sailed through the air and thumped Alex O'Connell squarely in a well muscled chest.   
The Englishman raised his brows in askance and she simply glared in mute response. The book was   
the only concession he was getting out of her and, after a long moment, he was smart enough to   
realize that.  
  
Without another word Alex set the book on the table, opened it, and started to read.  
  
**********************************************************************************************  
  
He hadn't been at all sure that the fiery Akayla Bay would react favorably when he had   
suggested that it be him to read the book. Doubtless there were Medjai who had the ability to   
read English and he had half feared that she would respond to the journal by bringing some   
stranger in to decipher Ardeth's last thoughts, if she didn't put a dagger through his throat   
first.   
  
There were depths and patience not noticeable at first in Ardeth Bay's only daughter.   
  
The book smacked him, hard, in the chest, as she threw it in pure ill temper.  
  
Though he was rapidly expending what good will was left in the fiery Medjai woman.  
  
The first pages he read revealed that this was indeed a journal, a man's diary, that begun the   
day of Ardeth's wedding, directly after Ahm Shere.   
  
  
  
'I married today... A woman that was chosen for me years ago from a distant tribe. I was   
struck at first sight though. She's beautiful, no more so than many of our people, but there's   
a delicate, frail air about her that is unusual. That makes me feel protective towards her,   
more so then I would normally be.  
  
'We seem well suited. I hope our tentative friendship grows to something deeper in time. Fate   
guides us all, perhaps I will be shepherded down the road of love, perhaps not. But I want to   
love my new wife.'  
  
  
  
Alex swallowed, glanced up at a silent, brooding, waiting Akayla, the ever patient Geitran,   
and, after flipping forward several pages, continued to skim.   
  
  
  
'I am a father and a widower in one breath, one heartbeat, one life defining moment today. I   
have never felt so shaped by one death, or one wailing birth. I named my daughter Akayla as I   
buried her mother.  
  
'I have faced many things in my time on earth but the thought of raising, teaching, being   
responsible for something so utterly helpless... It is a solemn thought, a touching   
experience. I am a father today, first and foremost, even as I grieve.'  
  
  
  
He skipped more pages this time, and fought the urge to read his almost father's life like a   
book, but paused at one dog eared page, unable to help himself.  
  
  
  
'My daughter became a murderer today. God help me, my flesh and blood took another life. She   
was brave, so brave, a man would have been considered brave but a girl of eight...  
  
'No father should live to see their child kill.  
  
'No father should have to wash a man's blood from their only daughter's hands.   
  
'I love her still, I always will, but sometimes I'm afraid of the person I'm creating. Much of   
my life has been pain and destruction. I don't want that for Akayla but I don't know how much   
of a choice she's going to give me. She always reaches for a sword instead of colorful   
ribbons. I think my biggest, my only weakness, if that I can never find it in my heart to say   
no. Not to her.'  
  
  
  
Alex flipped to the end of the journal. A bookmark of sorts, a single feather, opened one of   
the very last pages to a letter clearly addressed to him. He swallowed again, wet suddenly dry   
lips, and read on.  
  
  
  
'Dear Alex... If you are reading this then my worst fears have come to pass. I am dead or so   
lost neither you nor Akayla can find me.   
  
'Akayla... I'm sure she must have come as no small surprise, though shock was probably greater   
on her end than yours. Its not that I consciously kept knowledge of her from you, or of you   
from her. I am, was, one man but you both knew different sides of me. To you, I was the man   
who stood by your side as Ahm Shere sank beneath the burning sands. To Akayla I was a father,   
a leader, her anchor in a world that held little else for her.   
  
'But that is not why I wrote this letter.   
  
'Almost thirty years ago, when your parents and I faced Imhotep for the first time, in the   
tunnels under Hamunaptra I made a pact, a bargain, that must be fulfilled. I was hemmed in,   
trapped, by the monster's creatures, henchmen. Your father was torn between helping me or   
going after the beast and your mother.   
  
'I remember the panic on his face, the indecision. I remember the calm weight that many call   
bravery settling in my stomach. My voice was calm, firm when I made his decision for him.   
"Kill the monster, save the girl!"   
  
'Your father took my advice. I was prepared to die in that moment Alex, to die in the arms of   
rotting corpses' arms, sword flashing as I cut through bandages that reeked of death thousands   
of years old.   
  
'Should have died.  
  
'But then, ironically enough, if you believe it, there was light.   
  
'And from the light stepped forward a relic, a remnant, from a civilization that had fallen   
three thousand years ago. The Goddess Maat offered me life and I accepted.'   
  
  
  
  
  
  
AN2: Ohhh... mini cliff hanger... And yes, this is the beginning basis of the plot... "What,   
there's a plot?" I know, I know... I was shocked too... 


	7. Chapter Seven: Last Request

AN: Yes, after forever I have updated. I'm sorry to say there's no earth shattering changes, no   
flaming monsters or demons to crash this chapter but the story is moving along. Thanks so much   
to everyone who has left a review, its means so much to me. Hope life is treating ya'll well.   
  
~Kei  
  
Disclaimer: Me no own.  
  
PS: If I wasn't hopeless I would put the journal entries in italics but... html tags, me, bad...  
  
  
  
  
************************** Akayla Bay: Chapter Seven *************************  
  
  
  
'Maat stood before me, resplendent, bright, like some kind of angel. Its funny though, I   
couldn't, even a breath after it happened, tell you what she looked like or wore. I just have   
this burning idea of beauty and light forever seared and imprinted upon my mind. The air   
smelled of lilies... I remember that too.  
  
'Her eyes, her eyes still haunt me. Black and cold... As unforgiving and just as savage as   
the desert night. There's honor in her, integrity, but she doesn't play by mortal rules, none   
of them do.   
  
'She took my hand, admist carnage and certain death, held me close as we left the catacombs of   
Hamunaptra. I don't know where she took me; I can recall little but rolling, cleverly obscuring   
white mist, and a feeling of security, safety, warmth that infused every cell of my being. And   
we dealt.  
  
'She offered me life for service, obedience. I did not know it at the time but Maat foresaw   
some of what would pass at Ahm Shere. She sensed that the Scorpion King would rise and be   
challenged, that Anubis would make one last grasp for power, for domination.   
  
'In the old tales their powers, rituals, importance, are closely linked. Souls traveling to   
the afterlife were judged in Maat's hall, their hearts and souls weighed against a feather of   
Truth. Those who proved themselves to be pure and unsullied by life were blessed and released   
to Paradise. Those who failed the test were consumed by Anubis.  
  
'I won't pretend to know her motives. I know that she saw the small but integral part I would   
play in the second rising of the beast and chose to make her power, her stance, known through   
me.   
  
'I accepted her deal for my life and swore obedience on the condition that I would return to   
her temple before thirty years elapsed. This condition was absolute. Should I die before that   
time then my burden, my promise, would be passed onto my closest blood relative. To Akayla...  
  
'Akayla must present herself at the ruins of Maat's grand temple before the thirtieth   
anniversary of my pact with the Goddess of Light and Truth. Must complete the desperate   
bargain I made so long ago.   
  
'But she cannot do it alone. She is brave, braver than any man, any mortal I've ever known.   
She's fearless, a warrior, and a child. Never a child, but always one. She killed before she   
understood death and I fear, Alex, that she lives before she's understood life.   
  
'And that is why I have asked you here. I feel my time receding and, in all the world, I trust   
only you enough see my daughter through. Only you Alex, son of my soul, can guide the daughter   
of my blood.   
  
'And that is my last request of you, and of her, to finish what I started. To settle my debt   
with the Gods.   
  
'Not a simple task I know, nor an easy one, and not just because of the immortals. Akayla is   
not an easy woman to get along with all in herself. Sometimes, Alex, I secretly wonder where   
she came from. She's nothing like her mother, and I? I am a man who lives with the sword, not   
by it.   
  
'She is made of sterner stuff than I. Even steel would break if tested against her. But there   
are things stronger than steel in this world and Akayla, for all her strength, does not know   
how to bend. Teach her Alex. Teach my daughter how to survive, how to live. Show her that   
there is more to this world than the harsh loyalty she swore and the duties tattooed on her   
cheeks.   
  
'Show her that ultimate fulfillment doesn't have to be found in the glory of a warrior's  
death.   
  
'Save my daughter Alex. Save her from Maat and from herself.'  
  
  
  
And then it ended.   
  
Alex looked up and met the fuming Akayla's fiery gaze.   
  
"Well?" she demanded. "What does it say?"   
  
Alex smiled grimly and shut the journal gingerly. "That you and I are going to be spending   
some time together."   
  
  
  
  
Geitran watched as Akayla paced, furious. "Father wouldn't, couldn't... I don't need some   
Englishman, some outsider, following me!"  
  
The older Medjai crossed his arms over his chest and raised wintry brows. "And do you think   
that the 'Outsider' will let you walk away, knowing your father's final request of him?"  
  
"Damn you!" she spat. "I won't have it! I am not some untested, untried soul! I know my   
duty. I am Medjai, born and raised and tempered by the desert and the sun and the wind. I am   
leader and Alex O'Connell will not stay!"   
  
Geitran sighed wearily and crossed the scant steps that separated him from a woman who embodied   
all that his people valued. He dared to cup her cheeks with weathered hands, dared to lean his   
brow forward until it touched hers. "And how will you force him to leave? Your father owes a   
debt to the gods, but all of us, even scornful you, owes Alex O'Connell a debt as well. He   
stood shoulder to shoulder with those who saved the world.   
  
"You cannot force him away Kayla... The sooner you accept that the better off you'll be."  
  
Her dark gaze flashed. "And I cannot tolerate his presence. He does not belong..."  
  
"But he is here."   
  
With a cry of frustration she tore herself away and threw the flap of Ardeth's tent open,   
needing the calming presence of the open sky. She paused for a moment, black robes flapping,   
and sighed as the sun, a jewel high in the crown of the sky, shone brightly and brushed her   
hair sable, her face gold. Geitran followed her out more slowly, steps measured. He watched   
as she stood, shoulder stiff, face upturned, and relaxed as she finally spoke.  
  
"Alex O'Connell will accompany me on my journey to Maat's temple. Then he will never set foot   
in my desert, my home again."  
  
Geitran bowed his head and nodded. 


	8. Chapter Eight: Auspicious Beginnings

AN: You guys are seriously slacking in the reviews department here! LOL A million thanks to   
those who *did* review. You guys rock. I wasn't actually planning to sit down and write this   
now but I watched about half an hour of TMR and got inspired. I decided to complicate things,   
characterization wise, and yes, the journey itself finally begins this chaper!  
  
Disclaimer: I disclaim, I disclaim already!  
  
  
  
******************************* Akayla Bay: Chapter Eight ******************************  
  
  
Akayla's horse was packed, saddled, and bridled. The mare was tethered several yards away from   
the cliff she was perched on. A morning breeze caught her dark robes and flung them outward,   
outlining her form against the burgeoning azure of the morning sky. Kayka was small, and   
seemingly frail but then looks were so often deceiving. She came here often to think, and   
reflect, even before Ardeth's death.   
  
More so afterwards.  
  
Rough fingertips absently brushed the crown of feathers on Thor, her falcon. He preened   
beneath the attention and shifted from one foot to another, talons gripping her leather bound   
arm tightly. She bore scars from those talons, from the times she had dared to fly her bird   
without a gauntlet for protection.   
  
A grim smile touched her chapped lips. She had been younger then, and had more to prove, both   
to herself and to her peers. And to her betters.  
  
Akayla flung her arm upwards and Thor exploded in a graceful, violent movement of beating wings   
and sharp, sharp beak. She stood and admired his flight, his heady dizzying flight, while   
resolutely ignoring the man who had walked silently up behind her.   
  
Tarnif broke the stubborn silence first. "He is really going with you, isn't he, the   
Outsider?" Akayla bristled as she turned and sent a scathing glare at her childhood playmate,   
adult rival, and almost husband.   
  
"That Tarnif, is none of your business."   
  
The Medjai leader glared back and crossed well muscled arms across his broad chest. He was   
impressive, anyone would admit that. Tarnif was several crucial years Kayla's senior and a   
prime example of the pride of their people. She was fierce, savage, loyal and devoted to a   
fault but, for all she was, she was but a pale imitation of HIM.   
  
Of Tarnif with his chiseled features and height and breadth and muscle. Of Tarnif who flew an   
eagle and rode a stallion he had helped deliver himself when he was still a boy. Of Tarnif,   
man, leader, hero.  
  
For she was small and quick and a woman. She had made a place for herself, when her society   
had provided none. With tooth and nail she had clawed and fought and killed, had spilled blood   
on her brown, worn hands to be seen as HIS equal, both in their eyes and the eyes of their   
people.   
  
And sometimes it hurt to know just how impossible that task was.  
  
"Kayla." Her name was a stern warning, a mild rebuke, the kind of chastisement a brother or   
father made, not a lover. Not an equal. Akayla seethed.  
  
"I can protect myself Tarnif. From a goddess, and from one lone Englishman." She said nothing   
of her own doubts, and her own anger at having Alex O'Connell accompany her. Said nothing   
because she had made her decision and no one was allowed to question it. Because that implied   
questioning her wisdom, her authority, her strength. Akayla was leader of her tribe and no one,   
not even the man who arrogantly claimed her as his, could contradict her.   
  
Silence stretched loud and cold between them. Tarnif had his pride too for Tarnif, Tarnif had   
been leading his own tribe of Medjai for nearly five years. And yet still, still, he questioned   
her.  
  
"I thank you for watching over my tribe for the extent of my absence."   
  
Tarnif sighed and bridged the distance between them in a few short strides. He roughly pulled   
Akayla into his arms and up, up, he distance that separated them until their lips met. It was   
brazen and bold. A self respecting Medjai woman wouldn't have tolerated it for a second.   
  
But Akayla lived for the moment. Lived as a warrior. She took what she could of life, before   
it was robbed from her. She was angry, and hurt, both by words spoken since Tarnif's arrival   
the day before and one heatedly exchanged the last time their tribes ad met, several months   
ago. Angry and hurt but not fool enough to push one of her last ties on earth away.   
  
Not strong enough to reject the warmth and strength in Tarnif's arms.  
  
"I'll marry you one day Akayla Bay. I'll see you stand by my side and bear my children and   
unite our two tribes as one. I'll see you every morning as I rise and every evening as I drift   
off to sleep, content, sated, and mine."   
  
Akayla, furious once again, drew back. "I never said yes to any of your proposals Tarnif."   
  
He leaned down, down until his lips brushed her ear, sending shivers through her body. "But   
you will Kayla. You will."   
  
Akayla was a woman perhaps, especially when Tarnif held her, but she was a warrior and leader   
first damn it. "Go to hell," she spat and promptly began to disentangle their limbs.   
  
She snatched the reins of her white horse and swung up into the saddle, giving Tarnif the view   
of her stiff and unyielding back. She guided the mare down the steep path and to the Medjai   
camp where Alex O'Connell stuck out like some kind of pale, white angel, golden hair and all.   
  
"Are you ready?" Akayla demanded, knowing she sounded churlish to her own ears and not caring   
in the least. If the Englishman appeared a taken back by her curtness he didn't show it. He   
simply nodded genially and smiled... Just smiled. Without malice or judgment or... or any   
damn expression she could blame him for harboring. She wanted a scapegoat and her unwanted   
companion wasn't helping her out any.   
  
Geitran was brave enough to clasp the Outsider's arm and then come to her side to clasp her  
own. Akayla met his wise gaze with a set, hard mouth.   
  
"Tarnif doesn't mean it. You know that..."   
  
The white line of Akayla's firm mouth tightened and Geitran wisely stopped whatever well thought   
out advice he was about to offer. She rarely accepted interference from anyone, no matter how   
dear they were to her late father. Alex O'Connell was already pushing her to her limits.   
  
"Farewell," Geitran said instead as he stepped back. "You know where to go?" Akayla nodded   
abruptly. "Good and Kayla... I will watch over your tribe as well. Mine is quite happy to   
loan me out. They run out of tasks to occupy me with while my son does all the real leading."   
  
There was no pity on Akayla's face but her harsh, harsh features softened slightly and she   
managed a small smile before answering. "Your presence is no burden to me Geitran. You have   
my tribe's hospitality and my express permission to overrule Tarnif should he overstep his   
bounds." The last was relayed in a voice loud enough to be easily heard by her milling people.   
Loud enough to make certain that Geitran, not Tarnif, was the ultimate authority over her   
tribe, over the men and women who had sworn fealty to her at her father's death.   
  
It was the least she could do. Geitran had decades more experience and a much leveler head.   
Besides, she was still angry at the large warrior. That and she didn't quite trust anyone that   
much... Not with Tarnif's own tribe camped at the outskirts of her own.   
  
And with that last deed Akayla kicked her horse's flanks. The mare started before quickly   
streaming out of the camp, the still silent, still amused Alex O'Connell on her heels.   
  
**************************************************************************************  
  
As the two steeds and riders galloped off towards the uncivilized, unexplored desert sands, a   
falcon's cry rent the dawn. Thor shot like a bullet from the heavens and Akayla, with barely   
an upward glance, thrust her first into the air. The bird of prey landed perfectly as the two   
horses ran.   
  
"What's his name?" Alex called over the pounding of their horses' hooves.   
  
"Thor..."   
  
Akayla caught the surprised grin on the Englishman's face as he leaned close to his gelding's   
neck for better balance. "That's a Norse god!"   
  
"Your point?" Kayla shouted back.   
  
She could see Alex flush from where she was.   
  
"I just didn't think that..."   
  
He trailed off but it was too little too late. Thor took flight at Akayla's command as she   
took a better grip of her mare's reins and urged her horse faster. It complied, leaving Alex,   
in every sense of the word, both literal and metaphorical, in the dust. But not quick enough   
for the wind to snatch away Akayla's parting sally, thrown carelessly over her retreating   
shoulder.   
  
"Just because I can't read English doesn't mean I'm not finely educated!"   
  
It was going to be a long journey indeed.  
  
************************************************************************************  
  
Tarnif watched as the two riders dwindled into specks in the flaming horizon from his spot on   
the cliff, lips still burning from his kiss with Akayla Bay.  
  
He sighed deeply, before trying to shove his feelings of misgiving away. Akayla would come   
back, to her home and to him, she always did. Always would.   
  
He strode away without another backwards glance. He had a job to do and two tribes to lead. 


	9. Chapter Nine: Dream a Little Dream

AN: Wow, a new chapter. Its been well, six days shy of a year since the last   
update for which I sincerely, sincerely apologize. There are no excuses and I   
sincerely hope to finish this fic in a timely fashion. I always forget how   
much I love it, and these movies.   
  
Any reviews, by both new reader and old, would be treasured. I, like many here,   
thrive off reviews, both good and bad. You guys can definitely thank Laura for   
this update. She reminded me very politely, and frequently, that I was leaving a   
perfectly good fic languishing. I needed the reminders.   
  
~Kei  
  
**Forgive the mess of my layout, FF.Net and I are having some minor disagreements.**  
  
************************ Akayla Bay: Chapter Nine *************************  
  
They rode throughout the day, stopping at times to rest in silence, drinking scant   
supplies of water beneath the heat of the unrelenting sun. Alex allowed Akayla her   
quiet and left noise to the horses, which snorted and pawed the sand, and the   
screeching cries of Thor, the falcon.   
  
They camped at a small oasis as the moon climbed high in the sky and stars broke   
the claim of darkness on the land. An unspoken agreement sent Alex to start a small   
fire as Akayla fixed a sparse dinner. They reclined in front of the fire together   
as they ate, with the mare and gelding quietly grazing on harsh desert grasses,   
which grew around the small watering hole that formed the heart of the oasis.   
  
Alex watched the woman Ardeth Bay had raised and loved. Watched the fire throw   
stark shadows against the planes of her face as the flames warmed her lovely eyes   
gold. Strength of will and strength of will alone kept him reaching across the   
distance between them and tracing the tattoos on her tanned cheeks. She would   
hardly appreciate such familiarity.   
  
The distance between them was greater than a single camp fire.   
  
"Who was the man who came before we left?" he asked softly, speaking of the   
intimidating warrior who had arrived at the head of a fierce, Medjai tribe. He   
had heard he and Akayla fighting, most of the desert could have that morning, one   
day before they had left. He had seen them arguing again the next day, this   
morning. It was comforting to know he wasn't the only one who stirred the small   
woman into such a fury.   
  
Akayla jumped slightly at the sound of his voice and briefly cast her gaze his way,   
indifferent to his blatant stare as she shrugged fluidly, stiffly. The question   
had been unwanted. But Alex wanted to know.   
  
"We can't spend weeks together in silence Akayla."  
  
"Any reason why we cannot?" she demanded, velvet voice lazy and harsh at the same   
time as she chided the presumption of this Outsider. "You may have loved my father   
Alex O'Connell but many did. You are guaranteed no such affection therefore by me."   
  
"Would it hurt you to care about so many others?" he asked gently.   
  
Akayla smiled and it was a bitter, drawn gesture of emotion better forgotten. She   
rose gracefully, gathered and sure, a warrior in every movement, as her sword swung   
by her side. "You do not love in the desert Englishman, for she is a jealous   
mistress. What you cherish is always, inevitably, taken away before its time.   
The less you care, the less you break."  
  
"Then you must be one of the most whole women in the world because everyone loves   
and everyone looses Akayla Bay. But, you loose even if you don't love. It's the   
love that makes the loosing bearable."   
  
Her bitter smile grew in the shadows of the fire. "Did you read such a pretty   
thing in a book Englishman?" she taunted, her accent stronger with her annoyance.   
  
He laughed at her, but it was pitying, and she hated him more in that instant than   
in any of the days he had forced himself into her life. Akayla Bay was not one to   
be pitied, by anyone, especially by some child who dared to call himself a man.   
"Your father wrote it, in a letter he sent me long ago."   
  
"My father was a fool," she snapped, fists clenched, furious with herself for   
allowing herself to be drawn into such a meaningless, infuriating conversation.  
  
Alex regarded her wearily from his seat on the sand, pale eyes that were so foreign   
in her native land, fixed sadly upon her immoveable features. "He loved you."   
  
Akayla looked away. "He was weaker for it."   
  
He paused for a moment, and said the words he wasn't sure if he quite dared, "You   
loved him."   
  
Her blazing eyes locked with his and when she answered his heart ached for her anguish.   
"And I am broken because of it."  
  
Alex let the proud Medjai woman go and collect herself under the guise of gathering   
more firewood.   
  
********************************************************************************  
  
They didn't speak again until they were settled in separate bed rolls to ward off the   
fierce chill of the desert night. Akayla rolled onto her side and stared reflectively   
into the flames as she carefully considered her words. The Outsider didn't deserve   
an explanation and she wasn't quite sure why she was willing to give one.   
  
If he had been on of her men, there would have been discussion to begin with. But   
Alex O'Connell was not, and never would be, one of them. She wondered if that might   
have been one of the reasons Ardeth had cherished him as much as he apparently had.   
  
"The man who came, his name is Tarnif. He is a Medjai leader from a neighboring tribe   
and, calls himself my fiancé."   
  
Alex tensed from his near slumber across the length of the fire and pondered the   
delicate wording of Akayla's rich, lilting voice. "And what do you call him?" he   
finally asked carefully.   
  
Akayla surprised him by laughing. It was a beautiful, musical, raw sound. He liked   
the vulnerability in it. Liked the edges. Liked that it was as unrestrained as the   
rest of her was worn and tested and hard. Liked it enough that he wanted to make her   
laugh again.   
  
"I call him Tarnif."   
  
Alex smiled and looked at the stars as he stretched out under his blankets. "Then I   
shall call him Tarnif as well."   
  
"You amuse me Englishman, sometimes. You are so very foolish."  
  
"Then I am glad that I'm good for something. The Medjai do not keep useless things   
around."   
  
There was a very unlady like snort from the other bedrolls. "Well, you read English   
as well," Akayla admitted grudgingly.   
  
"And I can ride in silence for en entire day when my companion wishes it, though I   
fear I tend to break it as soon as we camp..."  
  
Alex O'Connell fell asleep, content, with the musical sound of Akayla Bay's laughter   
fading in his ears.  
  
********************************************************************************  
  
Akayla knew she slept. Knew because she had wept for the man standing before her in   
rolling white mists and she didn't weep for the living. Ardeth Bay opened his arms   
and the smile on his face was so bright, so un-shadowed by the many troubles that had   
plagued him when he lived that she felt herself returning it. She had never seen her   
father so happy. Imhotep and her mother's death had seen to that. Dream or not though,   
  
Akayla accepted what comfort she could.  
  
She stepped forward into her father's embrace. His arms circled her slender form easily   
and she buried her face into the depths of his dark robes, wishing reality away as   
calloused hands soothed her by taming wild hair and kissing the top of her head.   
  
"Kayla..."   
  
"Don't speak Father," she whispered through tears she didn't know she was shedding. He   
rocked her and she let him, let him offer her what she denied the world. She was not   
weak in anything but her love for him. There was nothing soft in Akayla Bay. She had   
killed what little gentleness had existed when she killed her first man at eight.   
  
Not even children can forget blood on their hands.  
  
"I did not want to leave you."   
  
"I know Father," she whispered. "Father!" Akayla cried as she felt him begin to   
dissolve, his form trembling and crumbling under her fingers.   
  
"Do not scorn Alex O'Connell and what he may teach you..." Ardeth said softly, voice   
disjointed as his only daughter stared in mute horror. He wavered for a moment, as tall   
and unbowed, as perfect as she remembered, his eyes warm and full of concern. He mouthed   
the words 'I love you' before disappearing into the mists which surged forward to claim   
him.   
  
Despite herself, Akayla screamed, "Ardeth!"   
  
The mists parted for a second with the force of her cry and she screamed again at the   
sight of something, something so beautiful and perfect, a being in white. She caught   
the edge of a savage smile and burning eyes before harsh hands shook her awake.   
  
Akayla Bay gasped as she jerked up, panting breath crystallizing in the cold morning   
air, short knife drawn to defend against her attacker. Alex O'Connell rocked back to   
avoid the knife's automatic arc, "Whoa!" he shouted and she blinked slowly, as if   
seeing him for the first time.   
  
"Alex?" she asked softly, voice unsure.   
  
"Yes," the Englishman replied gently as he watched her dumbly sheathe her knife, "its   
me. Are... are you all right?"   
  
"What happened?"   
  
He shivered. Akayla Bay was not one to sound lost, or confused. "You had a dream,   
a nightmare. You were screaming."   
  
Her unfocused gaze slowly found his and she chewed her full lower lip with her teeth.   
"I don't dream Alex."   
  
He smiled sadly and slowly offered her a hand up. She surprised them both by accepting   
it and Alex shuddered at contrast between her slim cold fingers and the warmth of her   
body as she brushed past him like a darkly clad ghost. He watched, grave, as she quietly   
saddled her mare, clearly lost to contemplative musings. Alex followed suit and they   
rode out half an hour later without breakfast, once more under the imposition of Akayla's   
silence, only, this silence was one he was loath to break.   
  
He didn't know what could haunt the fierce Medjai leader so, and wasn't sure he wanted to   
know enough to ask. He had nightmares enough of his own. 


	10. Chapter Ten: English and Englishmen

AN: Yay for me for updating. Yay for ya'll for reviewing. I was blown away by   
the eager response. Ya'll rock and I thank you for taking the time to review me.   
It means a lot. And it makes me write, quickly, err, quicker. =)  
  
Thanks to my new beta letylyf for proofing this, despite never having seen either   
movie. All mistakes within are mine.   
  
************************ Akayla Bay: Chapter Ten ***********************  
  
"Teach me to read English..." Akayla said in a tone that brooked little argument.   
She watched, amused despite herself as the Englishman in question twisted around in   
his saddle, shading his pale, burned face with equally pale hands.   
  
They were strong though, for any man's, and she had come to recognize their strength   
over the last week of travel. Alex O'Connell had braved the desert with the proper   
amount of respect. He did not fear the land they rode through, but he understood,   
better than any Outsider had before in Akayla's knowledge, exactly how deadly the   
dunes could be. His eyes shone with the truth of its fierce beauty.   
  
In another week's time he would be tan enough not to burn, though he'd always be   
paler than she was. The sun was bred into her skin. Akayla could never be anything   
but dark. She wondered, fleetingly, what tattoos would look like inked across his   
string face and pushed her musings aside.   
  
"Why do you wish to learn how to read English?"   
  
Kayla glared at the Outsider, though it held little heat, and shrugged fluidly, the   
movement nearly lost beneath the billowing robe her people favored. Its layers made   
her look delicate, fragile, assumptions that died as soon as you met the darkness of   
her determined eyes. "Because I do not know how," came her final, reluctant reply.  
  
"And maybe because your father's journal is in English..."  
  
Akayla sighed, suddenly weary, and threw her hood back, letting the sun crown the   
glory of her wild, untamable hair. She thought for a moment, and quietly answered.   
"I did not understand my father well." Her omission was painfully uttered and Alex   
O'Connell, to give him his due, did not belittle the trust implied behind its   
admission. "He, he thought in English. Maybe if I read it as well as speak it I   
can better understand the man I care... cared so much about."   
  
"He wrote to me in English."   
  
She smiled, her teeth bared in a gesture that conveyed little joy. "I know."   
  
"He understood you, very well."   
  
"He understood many things the rest of the world never bothered to comprehend." The   
pity and compassion in the Outsider's pale, strange eyes sickened her. Proud Akayla   
spat in the blistering sands. "I don't want your misplaced sympathy, Englishman.   
I've molded myself into the warrior I am today. Every step I took down this road   
was my choice, and my choice alone."   
  
Alex O'Connell reigned in his gelding until Akayla Bay's mare drew even. They stared   
at each other for a long moment, which he broke, tone curious. "You called yourself   
a warrior."   
  
She drew herself up proudly to her full, if slight, height, eyes flashing darkly,   
chin raised. "I am."   
  
His eyes traced the lines of her prominent tattoos before flowing to her lips and   
following the curve of her cheek. He wet his lips before asking, "Do you ever call   
yourself a woman?"   
  
Kayla's lips parted like a storm, but no sound emerged, despite her intense, sudden   
fury. "You have no right!" she hissed suddenly, fists clenched, and he knew, with   
the tenacity of a man who had faced death a dozen times over, that she was refraining   
from reaching for her sword and completing what she had started that first night she   
had found him in her desert. In her home.   
  
He shouldn't push. He shouldn't say the words that formed in his mind, but he spoke   
them anyway, because he liked Ardeth Bay's daughter. Because he wanted her to know   
more in life than steel and blood and death. "What right do you have to deny the   
person you were born as? You created Akayla the Warrior. You are Akayla the Woman."   
  
She looked like a demon in her fury, and it was tragic because of her beauty.   
"I should gut you where you stand!"   
  
Alex stopped his horse entirely and laughed, the sound coarse and harsh. "You'd kill   
me for speaking the truth? What kind of leader are you?"   
  
She screamed in inarticulate rage. "One who is NOT questioned. Especially by   
Outsiders! By Intruders! By, by..."  
  
"By Englishmen?" Alex deadpanned.   
  
Akayla stilled for a breathless instant and he readied to face steel. Instead, she   
threw back her head and laughed. Laughed the laugh he had come to treasure. Laughed   
with all the vulnerability of the womanhood she denied so fervently. Laughed like   
sunrise and rain combined. When she spoke again, her throaty voice was breathless,   
but calm.   
  
"Not many dare to speak hard truths to people who do not wish to hear them."   
  
He swallowed and dared to urge his mount close to hers. Close enough that she had to   
look up to meet his pale gaze, colored by lands she never hoped to see. Akayla was   
not her Father. She belonged wholly, entirely, to the desert. "Not many deserve to   
hear hard truths."   
  
"I am not a coward."   
  
"No," Alex breathed as he reached out, spurred by admiration, by desire that he had   
denied like the moon denied the sun. His white, calloused fingers, worn from   
adventures and scarred by things, people, lands, that he knew Akayla Bay had no wish to   
know, bridged the distance between them. He gently traced the fine lines of duty   
etched on her fine cheeks.   
  
She shivered once, beneath the shadow of his touch, before breaking the bridge he   
had dared to forge. Akayla Bay pulled away from Alex's touch in the first retreat   
the proud Medjai had ever taken in her entire life.   
  
She said nothing. Nothing at all. No condemnation, accusations, or reprisals. He   
watched as she slowly raised her hood to cover the glory of her hair and shadow her   
face. Watched her tan fingers move against the darkness of the cloth with a fine   
tremble he pretended not to see.   
  
And without another word she turned her mare and rode away. Away from the Englishman,   
the Intruder, the Outsider, who had forced her to bare so much of herself with his   
absurd words and unassuming arrogance. He was not Medjai and that would prove to   
be her undoing in more ways than one. Akayla Bay rode away from the man who had   
watched Ahm Shere sink below the sand as a boy. Away from Alex O'Connell.   
  
He let her dwindle in the distance before following as Thor screeched accusingly   
overhead. 


	11. Chapter Eleven: Ground Work

AN: Welcome back to the world of Mummy. =) Hope you enjoy the chapter,   
thanks to Irene for serving as beta, and well, I changed my pen name   
because Kei5 annoyed me. If I had wanted to e Kei5 I would have signed   
up as Kei5. Anyway... Its still just plain Kei.   
  
Review love?  
  
(Reviews= Updates... Really!)  
  
******************* Akayla Bay: Chapter Eleven ********************  
  
"Why are we stopping here? We have a schedule to maintain, you know…"  
  
Alex grinned as Akayla grumbled but followed as they backtracked to one   
of the few prominent desert towns, built around an oasis deep within the   
dunes that had hidden Akayla's people and their secrets for centuries.   
  
Days of hard riding had finally turned his skin a deep tan that wouldn't   
burn. He didn't match Akayla yet, and probably never would, but only   
his bleached blonde hair showed him as someone who might not belong   
to the fierce land, and the fiercer people who ruled it.  
  
The odd thing was that he did belong. She never would tell him, but   
the Englishman, for all his Otherness, held love for the desert night   
in his eyes and spoke with the lilt of those who knew that time stopped   
in the sands.   
  
Perhaps that was why so many were lost in the desert. There was no   
sense of time in the changing dunes, no feel of permanence, little proof   
of immortality. Even gods fell. Akayla thought of Maat's   
task and wondered what price the Goddess would require her to pay. Her   
father had bought his life for a fee never named, but before it was all   
over and done, Kayla knew she would be weighed and tested. Hopefully   
it wouldn't be her heart used for the scale like the tests of old.   
  
She would prefer to return to her people with all major organs   
included, but she would do her duty, no matter how difficult. It was   
Ardeth's last request, only request, of a daughter he loved too well.   
Who loved him back so much, she would never be whole without him.   
  
"We're stopping because if I don't miss my guess, my family will have   
returned from their trip and, finding me gone, will have grown worried."  
  
She snorted, "Well you do have the unfortunate habit of getting yourself   
into the worst trouble…"  
  
Alex O'Connell laughed, full throated, and she wanted to laugh with him   
because he was so like her people in some ways and yet different enough.   
Different enough to make her feel different; to make her feel human,   
like a woman.  
  
"Your family didn't know you were coming?" she asked as they rode   
through the roads surrounded by leaning, decrepit, dust covered   
buildings. Merchants hawked their cheap wares from camel tents in the   
alleyways and street urchins clambered under the hooves of their mounts.   
  
He shook his head. "No, they were off exploring Asia, Callie and my   
parents. My Uncle Jonathan stayed behind in England for both trips.   
He wants nothing more to do with adventuring. He has enough gold to   
last even him a lifetime."   
  
Her dark eyes narrowed and flickered to his ring finger on his left   
hand. Akayla's mouth tightened as she studied the unmarked finger   
but she simply asked, "You don't wear her ring."   
  
Alex looked at his companion with confusion darkening his pale eyes.   
"Who's ring? I don't…" Understanding dawned on his tanned features   
and the smiling face broke into a huge grin that showed off even   
white teeth and the wrinkles at the corner of his eyes. "Callie is   
my little sister Kayla."  
  
She paled and flushed with the foreign feeling of embarrassment.   
Medjai warriors had little time for tender feelings. Akayla could   
have done without the lesson in humiliation.  
  
She watched the Englishman ride ahead and silently fumed with all   
the tattered dignity she could muster.  
  
************************************************************  
  
Akayla caught up to him at what passed for the local post office.   
Alex was dismounted and sitting comfortably with feet propped up on   
the scarred table as he balanced easily on a three legged chair.   
He held a yellowed and somewhat torn letter in his hands as he read   
it eagerly.   
  
"Well?" she demanded crossly, accent thickening her words and   
deepening her voice.   
  
He shot her one of those unguarded smiles which caught her so off   
guard, and which came so frequently of late, before thrusting the   
letter at her. "Go on," he encouraged with a patronizing air that   
made her fingers itch for a knife, "you can do it."   
  
"Bloody Englishmen…" she muttered but obediently turned her attention   
to sheets of battered paper. It took her awhile to puzzle out the   
words, written in a hand so different from the one that had been   
teaching her for the past week, but she was brilliant, for all her   
lack of a formal education. "It sends condolences for… for Ardeth,   
and wishes safety for you, along with a quick return."   
  
"Very good." Alex took the letter back and folded it up before   
putting it inside his shirt pocket. "Just let me write a reply and   
we can be on our way after a bite to eat. Excuse me if I'm tired   
of our cooking."   
  
She snorted with cool disdain. "Thor is tired of our cooking. I   
have no objections to that, especially since we've already wasted   
most of the day."   
  
"I was thinking on that actually, we could save more time if we   
took a train, or a plane even…"   
  
"No."  
  
"But…"  
  
"No."  
  
He turned and glared at her. "Be reasonable."  
  
"No."   
  
"Kayla…"  
  
"My feet will not leave the ground."   
  
Alex paused and tried not to laugh. "You sound rather firm about   
that."   
  
She snorted. "I heard enough of my father's stories- planes,   
trains, and balloons included. We'll stick to horseback, thank you."   
  
This time he did give into laughter, and the urge to reach across the   
distance between them with a familiarity that grew every time he   
dared it. Tanned fingers ruffled her dark hair, giving the dignified   
Medjai a rumpled, somewhat exasperated look that made her seem all   
the more appealing for her sudden lack of habitual seriousness.   
  
He tried very hard not to think about if she would taste as rumpled   
as she looked. Mere Englishmen weren't supposed to taste the sun. 


	12. Chapter Twelve: To Fight Another Day

AN: Still waiting on my edit, but I'm impatient so, I posted anyway.   
All mistakes of the grammatical nature are, of course, all my fault.   
They usually are. And hopefully I'll update before too long. Honest.   
  
Many thanks to Caelan for never letting me forget this story, despite   
the fact that I've slowly been writing it for almost 2 1/2 years.   
Also, malu, I'm not sure if the following constitutes "action" but,   
what the hell, it was entertaining to write.  
  
Beware, humor ahead.  
  
Also, reviews make me happy.   
  
**************** Akayla Bay: Chapter Twelve ********************  
  
Akayla Bay cursed fluently, in several languages, as she ducked a stool   
that came sailing through the smoky air in the bar to shatter against   
the mud wall behind her. "Can we stay Kayla? Please Kayla, let us eat   
food that we mustn't make ourselves… What harm can there be in resting   
for a few hours?"   
  
She cursed again as a table followed the chair, before diving behind the   
dubious safety of the bar. "Bloody hell, I'm going to kill him,   
troublesome Outsider."   
  
The bartender was crouched behind the bar with her, a bottle of half full   
of vodka in a white knuckled hand. He wet his lips, brown eyes showing   
their whites in his fear. She wrinkled her nose in distaste at his smell,   
stale alcohol and urine. Water may be precious in the desert but sand was   
plentiful and this man could have done with a good scrubbing.   
  
"Shouldn't you be helping your husba…"   
  
"Husband?" the Medjai asked with false sweetness as her quick fingers   
stole to the hilt of her sword in response to his almost articulated   
question.   
  
The bartender tried to back away as he shook his greasy head furiously.   
"No sir, miss, I meant… what if they kill him?"   
  
Akayla rolled her eyes and tossed obsidian curls over one indignant   
shoulder. "Then I will spit upon his foolish grave." She stood up though,   
leaving the bar between her and the brawl as her fingers stayed near her   
weapons.   
  
The stupid Englishman was in the middle of a fight that involved him and   
seven very annoyed, but inebriated, locals. He was lucky they were as drunk   
as they were, otherwise he would have been knocked unconscious by a piece of   
furniture seconds in.   
  
Kayla ducked a broom and didn't so much as flinch as it shattered what must   
have been a terribly expensive mirror behind her. The bartender moaned   
piteously at her feet. She ignored him and watched Alex O'Connell swing   
bare fists and bloodied knuckles with the best of them, exasperated. Trust   
him to find a fight she couldn't even participate in!  
  
Never mind that her companion was fighting for her 'besmirched honor'.   
Akayla was trained for little besides death, bar brawls were beneath her.   
If she waded in, even to just knock heads about, she would probably kill   
someone and then they would have the drunks AND the local law enforcement   
after them as well.   
  
Disgusted, she waited, impatient to be off. She was already tired of this   
town, as small as it was, tired of being beneath ceilings and surrounded by   
walls. Annoyed by the smells, and the lack of respect from the populace,   
and most of all, annoyed with Alex O'Connell.   
  
Speaking of Alex…  
  
He shoved one of the drunks towards the bar. The man sprawled across the   
counter and leered up at her with a blackened grin. Kayla rolled her eyes,   
drew a dagger, and carefully knocked him unconscious with the end of her   
handle.   
  
Maybe she could knock some heads together after all, especially if   
it got them out of this hellish town faster.   
  
She cleared the bar with a graceful leap. Two gleaming knives already   
in each deadly hand. Akayla made a terrifying picture, dressed in black robes,   
ebony hair cascading down her back like waves, fierce tattoos stark, even   
against her honey colored skin. Her sable eyes were murderous, though in   
truth, most of that rage was directed at one particular nuisance.  
  
Five men went down in the space of a heart beat, all knocked unconscious in   
quick succession, leaving her face to face with the so called nuisance. Alex   
gaped at her, blonde hair askew, one eye already blackening, his lip swelling.   
Before he could say anything though, the last man, swaying behind him, had enough   
presence of mind to lift the single remaining chair high, and bring it crashing   
down on the Englishman's hard head.   
  
Alex crumpled with a groan and Akayla, with a sigh, knocked the last drunkard out.   
The bartender wailed with despair behind the bar and she rubbed her temples.   
  
Things were so much easier in the desert, and definitely more sober.   
  
******************************************************************************  
  
Akayla had just finished tying Alex to his horse when the drunks and their more   
threatening looking friends caught up with them. She watched the small mob head   
towards them with murder clear in their eyes, and decided that she had had enough.   
  
She made sure that the Englishman's mount's reins were tied firmly to her own   
saddle before vaulting up onto her mare. The horse danced, obviously as eager to   
leave the town as she, and flew like the wind when the Medjai warrior touched her   
heels to the mare's eager flanks.   
  
The odd traveling party had disappeared through the town gates and into the sunset   
before the mob had managed to quite realized what their quarry was up to. None of   
them had imagined that a woman, even a Medjai, would have managed so competently,   
and so completely to outsmart them. The Outsider certainly hadn't had the same   
presence of mind.   
  
******************************************************************************  
  
Alex groaned as he woke, his skull throbbing along with the rest of his battered   
body. He felt a moment of sheer panic when he opened his eyes to a blanket of   
perfect, rich darkness but, as his vision cleared he could see that the black was   
adorned with the familiar ornamentation of stars.   
  
Reassured, he managed to roll to his side, so that he was facing a small campfire.   
"Kayla?" he croaked out in question as he watched the flames add a meager measure   
of warmth to her glacial features as she crouched across from him.   
  
She ignored him for a moment, then sighed and rose with a liquid grace that was a   
unique mixture between warrior man, and seductive woman. She moved like silk,   
even when her movements whispered of steel. She knelt beside him, looking annoyed,   
though her calloused fingers were gentle as they brushed his swollen lip and   
bruised eye.   
  
"Foolish, foolish Englishman."   
  
"What happened?"  
  
Akayla rolled her eyes and rose to retrieve the mortar where she had ground up and   
mixed a pungent paste. "Hold still," she commanded, velvet voice a low purr that   
held no invitation but to absolute obedience. The gentle touch returned to apply   
the paste to his 'battle' wounds. "We," she replied finally, "were chased out of   
town."   
  
Alex absorbed this news as he let her doctor him. Finally, cautiously, he   
tentatively said, "I don't remember that part."   
  
A rueful smile was drawn from her full lips. "I imagine not. You were unconscious   
at the time."   
  
He stared at her with a sinking suspicion. "Did you knock me out?"  
  
"No," came the flat answer, "I let the idiots you were fighting do that for me."   
The rueful smile stretched to a satisfied catlike grin.   
  
Alex grimaced at the censure he sensed in her. "I shouldn't have defended your   
honor?" She raised a dark brow. "Did you even understand what they asked you?"   
he demanded in a sudden, albeit painful, rush.   
  
She laughed, the sound remote, and ruffled the bleached hair that was golden in the   
firelight. "The question 'Would you like some real men between your legs?' was   
quite clear, yes. I would have handled the situation very nicely, without the   
threat of a retaliating mob, thank you."   
  
He flushed a vibrant red as he digested her rebuttal. "I apologize," he finally   
said slowly, "I should have known better."  
  
"Yes," was her clipped, accented reply.  
  
"Am I forgiven?"   
  
Akayla Bay regarded him steadily as she considered this last question. "Are you   
in pain?"   
  
Alex shifted and stifled a groan in reply. "Quite a bit of pain, truth be told."   
  
The cat grin returned. "Good, then you are forgiven."   
  
He chuckled as she moved back to her side of the fire, amused despite his pain.   
The ghost of her touch soothed him as he restlessly slept. Akayla sighed one last   
time as she wrinkled her nose and ate her own cooking for yet another night. 


	13. Chapter Thirteen: Bad Luck

AN: So, I updated. And hey, character development AND plot. Who knew?  
  
As always, many thanks to Irene (my wonderfully patient beta), Caelan (for   
"gently" reminding me when I've been a slacker- which is no small job in itself),   
and Marcher (who always leaves an encouraging word no matter how long between   
updates). Reviews are more than welcome. I thank everyone who takes the time   
to leave one.   
  
****************** Akayla Bay: Chapter Thirteen ******************  
  
Akayla Bay didn't dream, she lived. But Ardeth's death had broken something   
within her, something that needed healing. Or maybe she had always been broken.   
Maybe her father had only protected her from a weakness she never even suspected.   
Maybe that was why she dreamt of him after years of unbroken slumber.   
  
Even tempered steel had its flaws.   
  
"Father," she whispered softly as she glided through the dreamscape of white mist.   
It clung to her dark robes and trailed up her legs to lap at her waist. Her dark   
curls floated behind her like an obsidian waterfall as she began to run slowly to   
him, fighting the air and the mist that tried to hold her back.   
  
Ardeth Bay stood an arm lengths away, hopelessly out of her reach, a sad, proud   
smile curving the line of his full lips. His eyes, always warm in life, were   
distant with mortality's lack. There was a sense of eternity that clung to the   
remnants of his humanity, perhaps a gift of immortal gods and goddesses to those   
they favored. And who would be more favored then the man who had helped to   
banish the beast beneath the sands twice in a human lifetime?   
  
He reached out to her, brushed tattooed cheeks with the rough tips of his   
fingers as she sobbed, allowing herself tears in dreams she would never shed in   
life. If dreams were a weakness, wasn't she allowed to be weak in them?  
  
Gods, she hoped so. She was so tired of being strong all the time.   
  
Ardeth wiped the tears away gently as he sang softly to her, his voice crescendoing   
and falling in the lilt of the Medjai people as he crooned the lullaby he used to   
sing when she was little and slept under the stars. Kayla closed   
her eyes and strained to lean into the her father's ghost's touch, remembering   
how big the world had seemed when she laid out beneath the night sky.   
Remembering how so little had to matter when her father sang her to sleep.   
  
So little was left to her. A mission and one bumbling Outsider couldn't replace   
the one person she had ever loved.   
  
"I miss you," Akayla said into the mist, voice strong velvet made to feel the   
cold rush of pain.   
  
"I love you Kayla," he repeated, voice a dwindling echo of her heart-felt   
declaration, "but who else do you love?"  
  
"Who else do you love?"  
  
******************************************************************  
  
She jerked awake under a tuneless sky, held in Alex O'Connell's arms as the   
Outsider tried to offer the mysterious Medjai woman what scant comfort he could.   
Akayla gasped and reached up to touch tattooed cheeks.   
  
They were dry, and she was once again in control, intact, showing the world the   
steadfast strength of her spirit. And yet…  
  
She was slowly grew aware of Alex's soft murmurings, the words a mixture of   
English and the familiar whisperings of her people's desert flavored tongue.   
One arm held her loosely, in a grip of corded muscle, and his free hand slowly   
rubbed circles against her shaking shoulders.   
  
She didn't understand him suddenly, and wanted to, wanted to so badly. How could   
he be so weak? So English! How could he kneel in cool sands and clasp her to his   
side, trying to give her what he knew she could never take? How could someone   
so weak, so pale and blonde and wrong be strong still?   
  
Alex O'Connell had stood by her father's side as they banished Imhotep one final   
time. Had ridden by her side through a desert that forgave as little as it loved.   
Dared to hold her in his arms now. His strength, undeniable as it was becoming,   
was not an easy thing for Akayla Bay to accept.  
  
It made her own unyielding strength brittle by comparison.   
  
"Kayla, are you all right?"  
  
The words were a rush of warmth in her ear and she shuddered in response. She   
said nothing though, refused to give him an opening into herself, her heart or   
mind. Why should she allow this Outsider into her soul? Why should she invite   
him in?  
  
'Who else do you love?'  
  
"I dreamt… I dreamt of Ardeth." The words, unbidden, spilled from her lips and,   
once spoken, Akayla knew she would never want to take them back.  
  
She sensed his surprise in her response, but he, stubborn Englishman that he was,   
was quick to press his advantage. "What happened?"   
  
'Who else do you love?'  
  
"I…" her tongue stumbled over her reply, tied with memories of her dream, her   
nightmare, and by conversations that passed between herself and the man who held   
her still. He had been here the last time she had dreamt. Had asked her these   
same questions she had been so loathe to answer.   
  
Akayla swallowed, feeling vulnerable as she looked up at Alex's tanned face, her   
dark eyes tracing the jaw line obscured by stubble, the sharp cheekbones, the   
pale unwavering eyes that held hers trapped. "Am… all I know is the sword," she   
finished breathlessly, lamely, "but…" She tried to turn away from him, from the   
intensity of this Outsider who would not GO away. Who would not leave her be.  
Who would not let her save her fierce pride because he was always there to hold her   
when she woke from dreams, nightmares, that she should not be able to have.   
  
Akayla Bay turned towards the false promise of Alex's arms, buried her face in   
the dip of his collarbone and muffled her tears, her forbidden, scorned tears   
against the rough cotton of his borrowed robes. She could feel his hesitation   
before the Englishman muttered a distant curse and gently held her closer, rough   
hands running soothingly through the dark curls of her unbound hair.   
  
She pounded ineffectively against the breadth of his chest with her curled yet   
trembling fists. "I hate being weak, I hate it. I hate it…"  
  
Alex shushed her by rocking her and holding her close enough to smell sweat,   
camel, and sun baked skin. To smell the faint tease of English seas, of   
saltwater in the bleached blonde of too long hair curling at his collar.   
  
"You're the least weak woman I know…"  
  
A single scorpion scuttled across the sand in front of them to burrow in Alex's   
sleeping rolls, across the gutted campfire. He frowned as his words trailed off.   
  
A second scorpion sprang from the sand a foot or two away as the horses snorted   
uneasily and shifted. Thor squawked as the desert wind picked up.   
  
A third scorpion joined the second, then a fourth.   
  
Alex O'Connell swallowed. "Umm… Kayla?"   
  
Her tears stopped as suddenly as they had come as she heard the warning in his   
voice. Akayla jerked away from his embrace and turned in time to see five more   
scorpions burrow out of the ashes of the campfire.   
  
"So," Alex remarked casually as he stood slowly and pulled her to her feet in front   
of him. "Something tells me this isn't a natural phenomenon."   
  
Eight scorpions dropped from the leaves of a nearby palm tree and scuttled over   
to join the enlarging menace.   
  
"Obvious much?" Akayla snapped smartly as the humans edged their way   
towards the horses.   
  
About two dozen scorpions scrambled free of the sands in triumph as the Medjai   
woman and Englishman turned tail and ran from Anubis's minions. 


End file.
